HARP

About

This pilot program is a collaboration between UGAR and the Associate Dean for the Arts & Humanities. Faculty with appointments in the arts and humanities are invited to submit an application for funding for undergraduate researchers to work on a specific project or set of projects in the 2019-2020 academic year.  The goal is to give faculty the opportunity to plan ahead to identify students and develop a timeline for their scholarly and creative projects in the arts and humanities.  Faculty who are awarded funding through this program will select undergraduates to assist on their projects.  Student researchers will be paid stipends rather than wages, so the students must derive some academic benefit from the work they do on the project.  Students may be responsible for some rote or administrative tasks, but the expectation is that they are intellectually involved in the project and learning about a field of study in the arts and humanities.

Awards

The funding awarded is specifically for stipends to pay undergraduate research assistants.  Selected students will work on the project part-time while taking classes.  Students are expected to work on the project for approximately 100 hours per term (an average of 10 hours per week for 10 weeks).  In the application, faculty specify the number of student stipends they would like for the project (number of students and number of terms per student) up to a maximum of 15 stipends per academic year.

Faculty who are awarded funding will identify and select the students who will work on the project. There are multiple ways to find student researchers: contacting students from their classes, getting suggestions from colleagues, sending emails to lists of majors or minors, posting a project on the UGAR online database, etc.

HARP Projects

HARP funding awarded thus far for academic year 2019-2020:

• Paul Christesen (Classics):  The Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World
• Tarek El-Ariss (Middle Eastern Studies):  Arab Culture in the New Millenium
• Levi Gibbs (Asian & Middle Eastern Languages & Literatures):  A Region of Rebels: Competing Moral Visions in China's Yellow Earth
• Peter Orner (English & Creative Writing):  Biography of Hendrik Witbooi
• David Plunkett (Philosophy):  Current Research in Philosophy: Conceptual Ethics, Climate Change, and Moral Obligations
• Roberta Stewart (Classics):  Military Service and Services for Veterans
• Zenovia Toloudi (Studio Art):  Images as Shared Architectural Myths
• Mark Williams (Film & Media Studies):  Media Ecology Project: Annotating Films Across Languages

Application Deadlines

Summer term deadlines for projects that will start in fall term:

• Application deadline:  August 21
• Notification of awards:  September 6
• Selection of student researchers for fall term:  September 20
• Student submission of the UGAR registration form:  September 25

Fall term deadlines for projects that will start in winter term:

• Application deadline:  October 29
• Notification of awards:  November 12
• Selection of student researchers who will start in winter term:  December 3
• Student submission of the UGAR registration form:  December 17

Faculty application

Applications are submitted online, and the components of the application include:

• Abstract:  description of the project
• Student role:  what will the undergraduate researchers be doing
• Value to the student:  the academic benefit to the students 
• Duration:  how long will the overall project last 
• Timeline:  number of students and number of terms of research per student

Student registration

Once faculty have selected students for the project, they will send a list of student researchers to UGAR and students will complete an online registration form.  Payments to students will be issued at the end of each term, contingent on the student and faculty mentor submitting online forms confirming that the student completed the term of research.  

Students who would like to delve deeper into the project have the option of applying for leave term grants to work on the project full time during a leave term.